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Readings: NM 11:25-29; PS
19:8, 10, 12-13, 14; JAS 5:1-6; and MK 9:38-43, 45, 47-48
Possibly during the Our Father...
Picture from my First Mass
This homily was the 12th in the series. Click on the links below for the other homilies.
Below are related bulletin articles...
Petitions of the “Our Father”
We
can often recite the “Our Father” without even thinking. However, we should pray it whole
heartedly. Unfortunately, we may not
even really know what we are saying.
Here is a brief glimpse of the 7 petitions found in it.
First Petition: Hallowed be Thy Name: We pray
that God’s name is made holy or glorified by the whole world and particularly by
us.
Second Petition: Thy Kingdom Come: We pray
that God’s comes and He may reign in us so that we can be with Him in Heaven.
Third Petition: Thy will be done on
earth as it is in Heaven: We pray for the grace to do the will of God in all
things as perfectly here on earth as it is in heaven.
Fourth Petition: Give us this day our
daily bread: We pray for all that is necessary for our nourishment
of body and soul.
Fifth Petition: Forgive us our
trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us: We pray
for God to forgive us our sins in the same way that we forgive those who sin
against us.
Sixth Petition: Lead us not into temptation: We pray
for God to protect us from temptation or give us the grace to overcome it.
Seventh Petition: Deliver us from evil: We pray
for God to free us from all evil, including the evil one.
One
way to help us better pray it, is by praying it slowly and thinking about the
meaning of the words as we pray it. Try
taking at least 3 minutes to pray one Our Father.
Sign of Peace and Breaking of the Bread
Sign of Peace and Breaking of the Bread
The
priest, quoting Jesus, says, “Peace I leave you; my peace I give you,” and asks
for His peace and unity to be given to the Church.
The
peace that Christ gives us is an internal spiritual peace that dispels anxiety
and remains despite difficulties, conflicts, and suffering. It comes from a confidence and union with the
Lord and builds up marriages, families, and communities. The priest offers this peace to us when he
quotes St. Paul by saying, “The peace of the Lord be with you always” (Rom 1:7;
1 Cor 1:3; & Gal 1:3). Let us accept
this peace and share it with others.
Exchanging
the Sign of Peace fulfills the command of Christ to be reconciled with others
before coming to the altar (Mt 5:23-24), provided we mean it. We can think of whoever we need to forgive
and let the people next to us be their stand-in, so that when we give them the
Sign of Peace, we can be at peace with others before approaching the
altar.
The
priest breaks the consecrated host. This
“breaking of the bread” is found in Sacred Scripture during the accounts of the
Last Supper. It signifies that the
Eucharist is to be shared. In the New
Testament, when it refers to the “Breaking of the Bread,” it is a reference to
the Eucharist and celebrating Mass.
A small
piece of the Eucharist, which is the Body of Christ, is dropped into the
Precious Blood in the chalice by the priest.
Since the separate consecrations of the bread and wine into the Body and
Blood of Christ, make present to us again the death of Christ on the Cross,
where His Body and Blood were separated, then this reuniting of the Body and
Blood expresses for us the resurrection of Christ.
When
we sing the “Lamb of God,” we recall that Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God, who
takes away the sins of the world. He is
called the Lamb of God by John the Baptist (Jn 1:29) and in the Book of
Revelations (28 times). Do we recognize
Jesus as the Lamb of God when He comes to us in the Eucharist?
The Lord’s Prayer “Our Father” Part 1 of 3
We
were commanded by Jesus to pray using this prayer as our model. It is a summary of the whole Gospel, but we
often say it without knowing what we mean when we say it. So, let’s go a little deeper into its meaning.
It
starts with “Our Father.” How can God be
our father? Father and son share the
same nature. The offspring of a dog is a
dog. The offspring of a human is a
human. We are humans, who were made, not
offspring of God the Father. God the
Father has only one offspring, who was begotten not made, consubstantial with
the Father. The Son of God is of the
same nature as God the Father, and so He can call God Father. How is it that we can call God, our Father?
By
our baptisms we become adopted children of God.
We do, by His grace and not by our own nature, have a share in His
divinity. God the Son unites us to
Himself and through Him we can be sons of the Father. So, by grace we are children of God and can
call Him our Father.
We
say “our” as a reminder that we are part of a community of believers and not
just individuals. We come to God
together and pray for each other.
Then
we say, “who art in heaven.” God the
Father is there encouraging us to join Him by focusing on the things of heaven
and having heaven as our goal. There we
will partake in the heavenly banquet, which here we can only participate in
through sacred signs and symbols.
“Hallowed
be thy name.” We ask God to manifest the
holiness of His name for us. As we make
this petition we recall the great things He has done in the past that glorify
His name. We also thank Him for the
great work of salvation made present to us again here at Mass. Lastly, we look forward to the promised
wonders yet to come that will reveal His holiness.
(To be continued…)
The Lord’s Prayer “Our Father” Part 2 of 3
(Continued from the previous bulletin.)
“Thy
kingdom come.” The coming of the Kingdom
of God began with the Incarnation and will be completed at the end of
time. We know that the earthly kingdoms
are under Satan’s control (1 John 5:19) and so we pray for the fulfillment of
His kingdom. We are praying for the
Second Coming of Christ and the end of time, the Last Judgment. As faithful followers of God, we should have
nothing to fear if He comes and judges the earth today, and so, we pray that He
comes now.
“Thy
will be done.” We pray not for our own
will (what we want) but rather that God’s will (what He wants) is done. Jesus gives us the example of this as He was
in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. In
His humanity (Jesus is both God and human), He had a natural desire to live and
not to die on the Cross. So, He prayed
that if possible that God the Father would not have Him go through with it, but
then He submitted His human will to the will of God the Father.
“On
earth as it is in heaven.” On earth
God’s will is to be carried out, but often times it is done imperfectly. So, we pray that His will be done perfectly
because that is how it is carried out in heaven. This too is calling for God to reign over
earth and establish His kingdom.
“Give
us this day our daily bread.” When Jesus
taught this to His disciples, they likely thought of the Manna in the
Desert. The bread from heaven that they
received daily. Their necessary
nourishment. However, the Manna was only
a prefigurement of the true bread from heaven, Jesus Christ in the Most Holy
Eucharist (John 6:49-58). This spiritual
nourishment is necessary for our spiritual life.
(To be concluded…)
To learn more about the Lord’s Prayer, you
can read from the Catechism of the Catholic Church #2759-2865.
The Lord’s Prayer “Our Father” Part 3 of 3
(Continued from the previous bulletin.)
“Forgive
us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Trespassing refers to sin, and we are seeking
God’s forgiveness. This petition in the
original language carried with it an urgency.
The early Christians (as we do today) believed that Jesus could come as
judge at any moment and so we need to be forgiven before we are judged; as such,
this request is for immediate forgiveness.
The difficulty is that we are forgiven the same way that we
forgive. So, if we want to be forgiven
we first need to forgive.
“And
lead us not into temptation.” God
doesn’t tempt anyone, but He permits us to be tempted for the sake of our
spiritual growth. Perhaps a better
translation would be “do not let us yield to temptation.” With this translation we can see that we are
asking God to give us the strength to overcome temptation and not give into it
and sin.
“But deliver us from evil.” Here we are asking to be protected from all
evil. This is the final petition of the
Lord’s prayer. This could also mean
deliver us from the power of the evil one,
Satan.
At
Mass, the priest then prays, the embolism: “Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from
every evil, graciously grant peace in our days, that, by the help of your
mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress, as we await
the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.” This acts as a commentary on the Lord’s
Prayer to help us better understand it.
“For
the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever.” This is not part of the Lord’s prayer, as
recorded in the oldest and most credible manuscripts of the Bible. Rather something like it first appears in the
Didache, an early Christian document
attributed to the Apostles. It is a
doxology, or prayer of praise, that is fitting for the Liturgy and so we use it
at Mass.
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